•  320
    Research Handbook on Liberalism (edited book)
    Edward Elgar Publishing. forthcoming.
    Can liberalism survive? In this edited collection, twenty leading political theorists explore the future and past of liberal political thought. Covering issues such as migration, climate change, the family, multiculturalism, structural injustice, rights, justice, equality, misinformation, illiberalism (and post-liberalism) - amongst others - the essays engage with fundamental normative and conceptual questions, as well as detailed analyses of specific historical and contextual challenges facing…Read more
  •  78
    How does empire become transposed onto justice? There are two kinds of question here, one historical the other conceptual, though they are often entwined. First, we may ask whether there are particular arguments about justice that were subsequently used in the justification of empire or colonialism. Or, we may seek to trace the conceptual structure of argu- ments justifying imperialism to their roots in particular philosophical views, debunking their supposed universalism.3 Second, we may ask ab…Read more
  •  129
    My aim in this chapter is to take the complexity of our histories of rights as seriously as the nature of rights themselves. Let me say immediately that the point is not to satisfy our sense of moral superiority by smugly pointing out the prejudices found in arguments made over three hundred years ago. We have more than our own share of problems and prejudices to deal with. Rather, in coming to grips with this history, and especially how early-modern political theorists struggled with the extens…Read more
  •  171
    Multiculturalism
    In Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Baltes (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Pergamon. pp. 10169-75. 2001.
    First published in the International Encyclopaedia of Social and Behavioural Sciences (Pergamon Press, 2001); reprinted in the 2nd edition (2015). An overview of different justifications of multiculturalism in contemporary political theory, as well as various challenges to and critiques of those arguments.
  •  190
    Democratic Trust and Injustice
    Journal of Social and Political Philosophy 2 (1): 78-94. 2023.
    Trust is a crucial condition for the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic institutions in conditions of deep diversity and enduring injustices. Liberal democratic societies require forms of engagement and deliberation that require trustful relations between citizens: trust is a necessary condition for securing and sustaining just institutions and practices. Establishing trust is hard when there is a lingering suspicion that the institutions citizens are subject to are illegitimate or under…Read more
  •  2
    Responding to Humanity
    Australian Review of Public Affairs. 2002.
    Why is it that we respond to one form of human suffering rather than another? If we are all human beings, and thus are all capable of imagining—if only imperfectly—the pain and suffering caused by wars, famines, bombings, floods, accidents and other instances of human misery, then why should it matter if it happens to people who look like us or talk like us? Or who happen to live here rather than somewhere else? Immanuel Kant, in his amazingly prescient 1796 essay on ‘Perpetual Peace’, suggested…Read more
  •  418
    Four Conceptions of Liberty as a Political Value
    In Dimitrios Karmis & Jocyn Maclure (eds.), Civic Freedom in an Age of Diversity. pp. 393-411. 2023.
    What would it mean to have a suitably ‘realistic’ account of political liberty? On the one hand, I don’t think we can properly understand liberty without an underlying account of personhood or agency.2 In making sense of liberty, we need to ask: What kind of agency does it presuppose or promote? What kind of independence do we care most about? What does it mean to exercise control, or to be self-guiding, in the kind of world we live in today? At the same time, a conception of moral and political…Read more
  •  161
    An exploration of RA Duff's 'communicative theory of punishment' in contexts of deep legal and cultural pluralism.
  •  359
    Why Globalize the Curriculum?
    In Melissa S. Williams (ed.), Deparochializing Political Theory, Cambridge University Press. pp. 273-290. 2020.
    In a world no longer centered on the West, what should political theory become? Although Western intellectual traditions continue to dominate academic journals and course syllabi in political theory, up-and-coming contributions of “comparative political theory” are rapidly transforming the field. Deparochializing Political Theory creates a space for conversation among leading scholars who differ widely in their approaches to political theory. These scholars converge on the belief that we bear a …Read more
  •  431
    Pluralising Political Legitimacy
    Postcolonial Studies 20 (1): 118-130. 2018.
    Does the Australian state exercise legitimate power over the indigenous peoples within its borders? To say that the state’s political decisions are legitimate is to say that it has the right to impose those decisions on indigenous peoples and that they have a (at least a prima facie) duty to obey. In this paper, I consider the general normative frameworks within which these questions are often grasped in contemporary political theory. Two dominant modes of dealing with political legitimacy are t…Read more
  •  158
    Justification not Recognition
    Indigenous Law Bulletin 24 (8): 12-18. 2016.
    The debate over the constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples is a deeply political one. That might appear to be a controversial claim. After all, there has been much talk about minimising the scope for disagreement between ‘constitutional conservatives’ and supporters of more expansive constitutional recognition. And there is concern to ensure that any potential referendum enjoys the maximum conditions and opportunity for success. However, my argument shall be that any form of constituti…Read more
  •  53
    Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (edited book)
    with Paul Patton and Will Sanders
    Cambridge University Press. 2000.
    This challenging book focuses on the problem of justice for indigenous peoples – in philosophical, legal, cultural and political contexts – and the ways in which this problem poses key questions for political theory. It includes chapters by leading political theorists and indigenous scholars from Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the United States. One of the strengths of this book is the manner in which it shows how the different historical circumstances of colonisation in these count…Read more
  •  25
    Does The Spirit of Haidi Gwaii Fly Only at Dusk?
    Theory and Event 1 (1). 1997.
    A review essay on Russell Hardin’s *One For All* and James Tully’s *Strange Multiplicity*
  •  275
    The central task of this book is to map a subtle but significant addition to the political discourse on liberty since the early modern period; a gradual shift of focus form the individual secure in spheres of non-interference, or acting in accordance with authentic desires and beliefs, to the actions of a self at liberty. Being free stands opposed, classically, to being in someone else’s power, being subject to the will of another – in particular, to being constrained by the intentional actions…Read more
  •  496
    The original – and often continuing – sin of countries with a settler colonial past is their brutal treatment of indigenous peoples. This challenging legacy continues to confront modern liberal democracies ranging from the USA and Canada to Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Duncan Ivison’s book considers how these states can justly accommodate indigenous populations today. He shows how indigenous movements have gained prominence in the past decade, driving both domestic and international campa…Read more
  •  517
    Transcending national citizenship or taming it? Ayelet Shachar’s Birthright Lottery
    Les ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 7 (2): 9-17. 2012.
    Recent political theory has attempted to unbundle demos and ethnos, and thus citizenship from national identity. There are two possible ways to meet this challenge: by taming the relationship between citizenship and the nation, for example, by defending a form of liberal multicultural nationalism, or by transcending it with a postnational, cosmopolitan conception of citizenship. Both strategies run up against the boundedness of democratic authority. In this paper, I argue that Shachar adresses t…Read more
  •  21
    The secret history of public reason: Hobbes to Rawls
    History of Political Thought 18 (1): 126-147. 1997.
    My claim in this paper is that what I shall call the problem of public reason became central to the political theory of the early modern period, and continues to be in ours. However the solutions we have, for the most part, inherited and developed since then are increasingly under pressure in these fractious times. Public justification may be crucial to liberal political theory, but it can take alternative and conflicting forms. Moreover, however much it is theoretically unlimited -- however muc…Read more
  •  464
    The Ashgate Research Companion to Multiculturalism brings together a collection of new essays by leading and emerging scholars in the humanities and social sciences on some of the key issues facing multiculturalism today. It provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge treatment of this important and hotly contested field, offering scholars and students a clear account of the leading theories and critiques of multiculturalism that have developed over the past twenty-five years, as well as a sense o…Read more
  •  69
    The moralism of multiculturalism
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 22 (2): 171-184. 2005.
    Moralism is a frequent charge in politics, and especially in relation to the ‘politics of recognition’. In this essay, I identify three types of moralism — undue abstraction, unjustified moralism and impotent moralism — and then discuss each in relation to recent debates over multiculturalism in liberal political theory. Each of these forms of moralism has featured in interesting ways in recent criticisms of the political theory and public policy of multiculturalism. By ‘multiculturalism’ I mean…Read more
  •  21
    Republican Human Rights?
    European Journal of Political Theory 9 (1): 31-47. 2010.
    The very idea of republican human rights, seems paradoxical. My aim in this article is to explore this disjunctive conjunction. One of the distinctive features of republican discourse, both in its civic humanist and neo-Roman variants, is the secondary status that rights are supposed to play in politics. Although the language of rights is not incommensurable with republican political thought, it is supposed to know its place. What can republican categories of political understanding offer for gr…Read more
  •  169
    Rights
    Acumen Publishing/Routledge. 2008.
    The language of rights pervades modern social and political discourse and yet there is deep disagreement amongst citizens, politicians and philosophers about just what they mean. Who has them? Who should have them? Who can claim them? What are the grounds upon which they can be claimed? How are they related to other important moral and political values such as community, virtue, autonomy, democracy and social justice? In this book, Duncan Ivison offers a unique and accessible integration of, and…Read more
  •  358
    Liberal conduct
    History of the Human Sciences 6 (3): 25-59. 1993.
    A philosophical genealogy of the development of liberal 'arts of government' through the work of John Locke and Michel Foucault.
  •  11
    Pluralism and the Hobbesian logic of negative constitutionalism
    Political Studies 47 (1): 83-99. 1999.
    According to an essentially Hobbesian account of political order, the claims of cultural and national minorities within a state to some form of constitutional or institutional recognition are morally suspect and politically undesirable. Underlying this Hobbesian logic is a particular understanding of the relation between law and politics. `Negative constitutionalism' is focused primarily on limiting the damage government can do. However the pursuit of constitutional minimalism runs up against th…Read more
  •  391
    Locke, liberalism and empire
    In Peter R. Anstey (ed.), The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives, Routledge. pp. 86--105. 2003.
    What does the 'colonialist' reading of Locke's political theory suggest about the relationship between liberalism and colonialism in general, as well as the pre-history of liberalism in particular?
  •  34
    Political community and historical injustice
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (3). 2000.
    This Article does not have an abstract